The Cream City in the Civil War

Milwaukee Color

July 3 in Milwaukee draws legions
of patriots to the bluffs and shorefront of Lake Michigan for the
city’s yearly fireworks show. As people drive, stroll, bike and
rollerblade their way through the East Side to the lakefront, they’re
crossing land that was once occupied by one of Milwaukee’s three civil
war camps.Camp
Sigel was bordered by Lafayette Place and Prospect Avenue and located
just north of Brady Street where present-day Oakland and Farwell avenues
run.

Because
the telegraph line substantially improved Milwaukee’s communication
with the East, the city heard about the firing at Fort Sumter only a
day after it occurred. A meeting was immediately called in the Chamber
of Commerce Building and a committee on resolutions presented a report
that supported Lincoln and condemned the Confederacy. Though Lincoln
lost Milwaukee by 901 votes when he ran for president in 1860,
Democratic Mayor James Brown supported U.S. retaliation against the
attack. Drummer boys were stationed at downtown street corners
accompanied by marching fifers to inspire young men to volunteer for
three months to fill Wisconsin’s initial quota of one regiment.
Wisconsin issued gray trousers, jackets and caps until the state
realized its soldiers would be at a significant disadvantage wearing
the same color as the opposing force.

Enthusiasm for the war slackened off quickly, and by the winter of 1861, volunteers were paid bounties to enlist. Over
the course of the war, the namesake of the camp, Gen. Franz Sigel,
developed a reputation as an inept general, and the name was changed to
Camp Reno in honor of Maj. Gen. Jesse Reno, who was killed in the
Battle of South Mountain in Maryland.

In
response to Lincoln’s call for 300,000 more men, including five
additional infantry regiments from Wisconsin, the state held its first
draft in the fall of 1862. In Port Washington, a mob threw the draft
commissioner down the courthouse steps, armed a four-pound cannon with
the only cannon ball in town and hunkered down to take on the U.S.
Army. A draft rebellion in West Bend required six companies of infantry
to restore order. The next year, the federal government took charge and
ordered 30% of males between the ages of 20 and 45 into uniform.

During
a speech held on the bluffs along Lake Michigan on the Fourth of July
in 1863, Sen. James Doolittle received a telegraph message announcing
that the battle at Gettysburg resulted in “the total rout of the
Confederates.” Convinced the hated war would soon be over, Milwaukeeans
packed the streets and saloons in celebration. However, a year passed,
the fighting continued and it was getting harder and harder to avoid
the draft. When Robert E. Lee finally surrendered in April of 1865,
Wisconsin lost 3,602 soldiers in combat, along with 7,627 dead from
disease and accidents. Many of these men had been mustered in and equipped for service at Camp Sigel/ Reno on Milwaukee’s East Side.